The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, VIPER, is being assembled and tested at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. With a planned launch and lunar landing expected in the fall of 2023, the golf-cart-sized rover is being put through its paces and customized for the specific conditions of the lunar south pole.

VIPER is part of NASA’s Artemis program, specifically designed to assist in the planning of a lunar base. In order to host humans, one of the biggest challenges is finding in situ resources. Supplies like water and building materials are heavy, and more weight equals more fuel needed for launch. So if astronauts can use water and regolith and rock already on the Moon, that’s more room for scientific equipment and fewer trips to get all those supplies up there. VIPER is being sent to assess the water ice supplies at the south pole of the Moon, where shadowed craters have been found that have ice. The questions remain of how much and how deep, though.

Challenges facing VIPER and its engineers include the darkness of the lunar south pole. VIPER will need headlights – a first for a rover. That darkness also means that the rover will have to navigate in and out of the craters in order to recharge the batteries using sunlight. And that sunlight will be coming in from a steep angle, so the usual rooftop solar arrays will have to be mounted on the sides of the rover.

On top of all of that, those climbs in and out of craters mean that VIPER requires “four independently controlled wheels that can handle slopes of 25 to 30 degrees.” Wow.

Good luck to the design team. We’ll keep you posted on launch dates as we learn them.

More Information

JHU press release